Spanish Honor - The Matrix Games version of East Front II

Krasni Bor, 23km SE of Leningrad: [Best played as Axis] The all-volunteer 250th Infantry Division, better known as the Spanish Blue Division, entered Russia in August 1941, 16,000 men strong. Initially shunned and despised by the German Wehrmacht, unfairly better known for their womanizing, they performed magnificantly, climaxing with the Battle of Krasni Bor. There, 5,600 Spaniards held off a Russian force of 44,000 men supported by 100 tanks and massed artillery, sustaining a casualty rate of 75%. When the Spanish Blue Division was finally repatriated home in April 1944 for political reasons, they had suffered 13,000 casualties. The last POW survivors would not set foot on Spanish soil until 15 years later.